Common Name: Nobunaga no Shinobi: Anegawa Ishiyama-hen
Alternative Names: Nobunaga no Shinobi 3, Ninja Girl & Samurai Master: Anegawa and Ishiyama Arc, Ninja Girl & Samurai Master 3rd
Score: 4/10, 4/5
Length: 3 Seasons of 26 Episodes
Genre: Action, Comedy, History, Military, Samurai, Short-Form
Summary: Despite his many losses and victories, Nobunaga's ambitions to unite the nation have not ceased. Yet all his continued efforts have really earned him are even more enemies, including a militant religious group and several within his own ranks. Amidst all this warring and strife, Chidori is beginning to buckle under the weight of all the lives and dreams she has taken in Nobunaga's name.
Review: Sorry as I am to say it, Nobunaga no Shinobi has become something of a cautionary tale for me on the importance of finding a balance between variety and established tradition. Regardless of what kind of show it is or how well it uses its imagery, tone, or characters, there comes a point where something has to change or else the formula starts to become stale and repetitive. As of the show's third season, that moment finally came and, I'll be honest, I'm barely able to recall what all happened in this season and how any of it connects. Though I feel like it started before this point, I've been steadily losing interest in this show's humorously cute art style and even quirkier brand of comedy strictly because very little changed and the short-form format took away from the context and gravity this wartime story needed to function properly. There are a few fights in this season that start and end within the show's 4-minute runtime and are played off as being serious and weighty only to have the show basically just shrugs off that serious tone as it plows right into the next episode, deliberately severing any connection between the new episode and the previous one. At the series' start, I found this kind of format to be fun, quirky, and easily digestible. As it's dragged on, though, that novelty has lost its appeal and revealed itself to be just a scatterbrained mess of gags and jokes that don't really tie into one another.
Granted, that scatterbrained mentality has been part of Chidori's
character for some time, so I guess it's still kinda appropriate.
When I complain about the show's lack of variety, though, it isn't like the show doesn't change. From episode to episode, the show switches between being dead serious and comedic. The manner in which it switches back and forth, though, is generally pretty predictable and both modes basically follow the exact same tone and structure regardless of how different the current situation might be. However, there is one particular alteration added to Nobunaga no Shinobi in this third season that is worthy of note, if only because it is arguably the worst change this show could have gone for. Where the first couple seasons focused on injecting comedy and fun into Nobunaga's crusade to unite Japan, this one forgoes the comedy almost entirely to take on an almost grimdark quality as the whole cast begins to buckle under the weight of this war. As historically appropriate as that dark turn might be, given the loss of morale Nobunaga's forces likely suffered during their exhausting war, it makes the show almost oppressive to watch. As the characters are forced to twist and turn in ways that just don't fit the show's original mentality, the disconnect the lack of variety created is only exacerbated to the point that I'm brought to the brink of not being able to care anymore. The most egregious of these turns, though, is that of the "main character" Chidori who is just suddenly forced to care about how many lives she's taken as she encounters Hongan-ji Kennyo's religious fervor. For a character that has previously butchered people by the dozens without batting an eye, this sudden growth of a humanitarian conscious only muddies her purpose in the show itself.
Since when? This is the girl who made jokes at how powerless the show's
adds were as she cut through them like a hurricane.
For the first and most of the second, Chidori's role in this show was to inject humor into the bloody battles. She's depicted as this dense and almost muscle-headed force of nature that can and does lay waste to all of Nobunaga's enemies. For the show's comedy, she is simultaneously the straight man to the rest of the cast's quirkiness and a source of absurdism as she recklessly jumps into battle. This sudden turn in character basically removes both of those parts of her character as she gets lost in an emotional mire. So, from the start, we've not only lost this show's main source of comedy but this turn has turned Chidori into an active drag on the show's mood as she constantly bemoans her fate and duty to kill more people for Nobunaga. Based on the opening, there is some hope that Yoshinari will reinvigorate Chidori's old attitude, yet that moment never really comes. Rather, thanks to his valiant death, Chidori just sinks further into depression as she swears she'll lay down her swords once the fight is over. This, of course, is a far cry from all her previous pledges of eternal service and gratitude to Nobunaga and promise to be Nobunaga's tool. So we're basically given an entire season where the main character isn't doing her job and has no interest in doing so going forward, leaving us with a cast of characters with the same tired, old jokes to pick up the slack.
And let's just say I take some issue with the comedy the rest of the cast has to offer.
While I might have been interested in Nobunaga no Shinobi up to this point, I'm honestly unsure if I want to continue on if another season gets announced. The rest of the cast show's no signs of changing. Chidori is basically either a non-character or an active detriment to the comedy that kept the show afloat for so long. The tone, narrative, and pace of the show is a muddled mess. Honestly, I might just throw in the towel here because I don't see how things could get better, based on what still needs to be covered in Nobunaga's campaign. Considering that Nobunaga no Shinobi never really had anything going for it artistically, there's really nothing of note that might convince me to plow through it despite my reservations. So, in the end, whether or not I continue with this series will depend on my mood when the next season air--assuming it does at all--and whether or not the first episode of that season starts off by fixing some of my biggest complaints.